Help me work out how to alert my friends to what's happening. Also is my panic irrational?

[FriendofJoanne]

I've posted the Sex Matters petition and all my family and some of my closest friends have signed, but others have said nothing. When we get together we are usually in a group catching up on our lives in general, and I try to talk but haven't managed to so far.

I've shared the petition on our Whatsapp group but only had one contact me separately. I've written a letter but not shared it as there's so much to say. I want to share my worries succinctly - about women's rights being eroded, children being taught that gender is more important than sex, children and vulnerable adults being medicated and given surgery instead of therapy to help them with trauma.

This is affecting my mental health now, I feel sick, depressed and anxious about the world we live in because of this. I care about global warming and the financial inequality of the world too, but this issue has taken over my life. For you others in this who post regularly how do you manage your anxiety? Do you feel anxious? How do you keep going?

I try to put time boundaries around how long I spend reading, but I do tend to listen to podcasts while doing other things.

My husband suggested I step away for a bit, I do need to, but I feel strongly that once I've shared my concerns it will relieve my anxiety and I'll be able to stop obsessing about it.

So please help me very succinctly explain why this issue is so important. Thank you :) Or just some headlines to catch peoples attention to read more. I think a lot of people still don't think its relevant to their lives.

I dont care how many times you dont answer, no skin off my nose.
Happy to put my workings as mine make sense, are not woolly and of course I bother to answer.
Your non answering tells us all something. And we can all see you repeatedly not answering.

All sorts of conversations come up amongst friends but no I will not listen to anyone about anything who takes the line 'why won't you listen to me I right' and stamps their foot

@CryInToYourCornflakesNicola and what was the hyperbole about killing her trans friends if not trying to shame us into silence.

@mollynolly of course you are under no obligation to share your workings. But just bear in mind that there are lurkers on these threads, reading and making their minds up about what they believe. I was one of them. It was the lack of any sort of coherent arguments from the TRAs (as opposed to the very well reasoned ones from the GC feminists) that cemented my own GC beliefs.

Sadly, having a lovely and interesting TQ+ friend is more likely than having the wide social experience of having met a woman who's been in a refuge or a prison. It makes those women very easy to 'other' and see as too far away to think about or care about.

The thing to keep in mind is: what enabled those assaults and injuries on those women, lifechanging in some cases both physically and mentally, was male people being in those women's spaces where those women were vulnerable. And those male people being exempted from the restrictions strictly applied to all other males because of the known safety and privacy/dignity issues.

How exactly those males identified and for what reason makes absolutely no difference at all to the woman being attacked.

Hmmm not working well that shaming of us is it.

I'm not being very silent and I haven't heard of anyone dying from my noise.

And to kerb their freedoms and right to live their lives in the way that feels authentic to them would be to kill them.

Now I cannot remember the post where O read this paragraph but I would like to ask whoever wrote this to reflect on whether you really think this?

Do you really mean to say that if someone else, not your TW friends as they are nice, but a criminal with a trans identity were given a special space in prison (alongside other vulnerable people) but not be housed with women - this would kill your friends?

Do you really mean to say that if one of your friends were raped and attended a rape crisis centre, it would kill them if they were offered a specialist service tailored to their circumstances, instead of sitting in with the women’s group of rape survivors?

Do you mean to say that if one of your friends were good at a sport, say swimming, it would kill them to be in a transwomen’s team rather than one for women?

Do you mean to say that in a public facility if one of your friends were given the opportunity to use a separate enclosed lavatory/basin room, instead of the communal ladies’ lavatories, it would kill them?

We all know lovely transwomen. But not all transwomen are lovely. TW have at least the same offending rates as men. That is a fact.

We all know lovely men and many of us live with them. But not all men are lovely. Does that mean that if we go to prison men should be in with us?

And would it kill your
lovely TW friends if - not one of them because they are nice - but a criminal TW were to have their crime listed under crime statistics committed by people who are born male (who as a class committ something like 98% of violent and sexual crimes?)

What, would it truly kill them if that were to happen? Really? Even if the criminal identifying as a TW had used their penis to commit the crime?

grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/this-never-happens

I just can't imagine anything more selfish than promoting the wants of an individual over the needs of the group.

I often suffer from similar feelings. I have to take breaks and do breathing exercises. Remind myself that I am safe right here in this moment, I have people who love me, that change is slow and we have to learn to enjoy this moment as it is in all of its beautiful tragic chaos. It's okay to rest. We are only human after all. We fight better when we're in tip top shape after all. Taking care of yourself first and foremost is the most important thing!

Thanks everyone. I'm feeling much better today. Some over dramatic responses on here from a few posters thinking that I am trying to indoctrinate my friends or am expecting a particular response from them. Waving at all the support vipers though, it is good to just have a bit of a release on here. Happy to see the petition creeping up.

I was asking how to summarise the main issues - all I've done so far is share the petition on a whatsapp group with no explanation, and the Eddie letter on Facebook so I'm not shoving this in their faces constantly, in fact when we meet in person I hold back because we have other stuff to catch up on about families, health etc.

I would love to find a local group - nothing back from either Standing for Women or WRN though, I had one from WRN about 3 months ago saying they were working their way through non twitter users gradually. I haven't 'joined' either by a subscription though as I'm not working atm. Maybe if I did that I'd have a response - are any of you in a local group for either of those and do you have any info you can share - like how often you meet, if the groups are helpful, if you recommend one over the other or does it just depend on what you have running locally?

This.

Right back atcha, so just can the rape and death threats.

I find it funny and hypocritical that the woke people are coming after OP like this. Because I've seen plenty of my woke friends say very similar things and they would act like and often proclaim it would be violence and attacking their mental health to counter them during such a weak fragile time in their lives and say we need to be kind. But when the situation is reversed they have no kindness to spare us. This is why I hold no sympathy.

I think Molly & Red are trying to manifest their wishes, because here in the real world the majority of people when asked don’t want people with male genitalia in women’s spaces however those ‘people’ identify.

yougov.co.uk/topics/society/articles-reports/2022/07/20/where-does-british-public-stand-transgender-rights

The hyperbolic language is interesting too - I am anxious but that’s part of who I am. I’m an empathetic person and want the best for everyone. I’ve not expressed being ‘terrified’. I have not seen any legitimate argument to explain why tras aren’t campaigning for 3rd spaces.

The majority don’t agree that tw are women it’s just that they don’t know what’s going on thanks to the capture of bbc and Tra tactics but also because most people don’t think it’s relevant to their lives.

For me this isn’t just about safeguarding but also about the lack of democracy. I’m shocked at how policies which have huge impacts on society have been introduced without any transparency. This is relevant to all our lives.

If you're pro women being excluded, harmed, raped and subordinated for the better freedom of males, whatever their agenda, you do you.

But you are going to have to own it. You believe, at heart, that people born with penises matter far more than those without, and that their is a sex based burden at birth laid on females to suck up their harm and subordination so that men can do whatever they feel makes them happy at the time.

Whatever. If that's your belief, own it. Justify it. Instead of just plopping by to say 'this' and chicken out as if the only bit you're interested in is trying to annoy women who want equality for the laughs of it. And you can hardly be surprised by many women saying if you want to martyr yourself for the penis people you do it, but I won't.

If that's your belief, support third spaces. Go and undress with whoever you feel like, let whoever you want share a cell with you, let whoever you want intimately examine you post rape. But why try to control other females from getting away so that males can be happy? Why stand up for stripping other women of equality and access because men want you to? Justify that bit. Because that's the bit I don't get. That's the bit I don't think can be morally stood by, by anyone male or female who is a TQ+ political believer. That's when I start wondering what the personal agenda is, the same way I wonder when I see a woman with a lot of sexist beliefs on an AIBU thread insisting that a good woman goes and gives the man who tried to strangle her a big cuddle and makes his favourite dinner because he obviously is having a hard time and it's her job to fix it. What's that woman's agenda and how is this meeting her needs to try and get another woman to masochistically embrace her abuse?

All of this does make however a complete nonsense of any claim that men ever change sex, or that anyone ever changes sex, or that sex isn't binary, or that this is not purely and simply sexism on crack.

Well said. It's the same as the mindless chanting of the usual mantras.
It's much easier to plop and run than actually own what you're agreeing with.
I want to know how they can possibly think that their consent should cover other women, and yet still think they're being kind. Or is it 'be kind' but only to men?

If you're pro women being excluded, harmed, raped and subordinated for the better freedom of males, whatever their agenda, you do you
I'm not, and nowhere have I ever said that so don't put words in my mouth.

What do you expect is the outcome of supporting people who ignore the needs of sex segregated prisons, refuges, hospital wards, changing rooms and toilets?

Can you honestly state what you believe will be the outcome for women and girls if males are allowed to access these spaces under the current plans?

You cannot support this agenda and just identify out of taking responsibility for what it does to women.

If you support the one you're enabling the other. I'm sorry it's unpleasant to face, but that's the truth of it.

Women here are arguing for a situation in which TQ+ males have the facilities they need AND so do women, without women suffering rape, exclusion and subordination.

You're posting against that. You are posting against women who want women escaping the rape, exclusion and subordination.

I say ‘the problem isn’t trans people, the problem is abusive men exploiting the loop holes that allow them to declare they are women whilst keeping their penis and then being locked up with female prisoners or showering with naked women on a sports team.’
Thats my opener.

Indeed what is already the outcome for women.

This is happening. The body count of women who have been raped, assaulted, harmed, excluded, who are living in dangerous situations unable to escape because of this agenda? It's rising. It's happening to women now, today.

Either you're ok with this and you think it's an acceptable cost for the TQ+ political lobby's wish for TQ+ male people's freedoms - you're ok with women being raped and harmed as a fair price for male betterment - or you haven't thought this through enough.

I'd add that it makes no difference to the woman being attacked as to how the male person attacking them identifies or feels inside. Whether or not the male is actually trans or not is irrelevant to her: and either way the male person had the same opportunity handed to attack her.

And it is the TQ+ political lobby pushing this: they do not represent the feelings and views of all TQ+ people, and are certainly not all TQ+ identified people themselves.

Agreed. But it’s my simple opener. Just to set out my initial position.

Either you're ok with this and you think it's an acceptable cost for the TQ+ political lobby's wish for TQ+ male people's freedoms - you're ok with women being raped and harmed as a fair price for male betterment - or you haven't thought this through enough.

I can only conclude it's the first part in Red's case as she has been listening to us all predict this for years and I've not heard anything to the contrary from her yet.